A Hostile Environment for Labor

Under the Arroyo Administration

Prof. Judy M. Taguiwalo
 Outline
 Introduction
 Failure in Promoting Employment
 Violation of Basic Labor Rights
Contractualization
Assumption of Jurisdiction Power (AJ)
 Culture of Impunity Against Labor Rights
Violations
 Conclusion
 Section 3. The State shall afford full protection to
labor, local and overseas, organized and
unorganized, ­and promote full employment and
equality of employment opportunities for all.

 It shall guarantee the rights of all workers to

self-organization, collective bargaining and
negotiations, and peaceful concerted activities,
including the right to strike in accordance with
law. They shall be entitled to security of tenure,
humane conditions of work, and a living wage.
They shall also participate in policy and decision-
making processes affecting their rights and
benefits as may be provided by law.

(Article XIII,Section 3, 1987 Philippine Constitution)

 GMA’s Failure to Promote
Employment
 Conservative estimates place almost three
million Filipinos were without jobs while
almost seven million were underemployed in
2009.
 IBON places at 11.2% the average
unemployment rate for the period of 2001-
2009, which it cites as “the country’s worst
nine-year period of sustained high
joblessness in over half a century”.
Average Unemployment Rate over
the decades
Tim e Period Average
Unem ploym ent Rate

1956-1960 8.0%
1961-1970 7.3%
1971-1980 5.4%
1981-1990 10.2%
1991-2000 9.8%
2001-2009 11,2%
Source: Ibon Foundation, “Yearend 2009: Economic Shocks,
Political Ambitions and Challenges for the People in 2010”, January
14, 2010, p.14
 A Social Weather Stations survey just last
October 2009 reported that one of every two
people or fifty-one percent considered
themselves as poor.
 Two out of every five (or 40 percent) said that
they did not have sufficient food on their
tables (PDI Editorial, January 22, 2010).
Daily cost of living vs. minimum wage

NCR Jan 2001 Now

Daily P509 P917 (Sep ’08)

COL
Min. P213 - 250 P345 - 382
Wage
Shortfall P259 -296 P535 -572
 Contractualization: Making Labor Cheap and
Malleable

 Assumption of Jurisdiction Power (AJ): Virtual

Ban of Strikes
 DOLE Order No. 18-02 which essentially
legalized contractual labor.

 Instead of the regularization of workers after

six months, employers now hire and rehire
contractual workers after five months.
 The combined share of casual, contractual, and part-
time workers in total enterprise-based employment
reached 21.1% in the late 90s. This means that one of
every five enterprise-based worker is a temporary
worker. By the mid-2000s, under the GMA
administration, the ranks of contractuals in the labor
force have steadily increased.

 In a tuna canning factory in General Santos, 96% of

the workers are contractuals. A plastic manufacturing
firm in Southern Metro Manila has 78 contractuals
out of the 100 employees. Data from the 14 Unions
in the National Capital Region ­that belong to the
labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno indicate that as high
as 67% of the workforce in their factories are casuals.
 Based on the 2003 admission of Donald Dee,
President of Employers Confederation of the
Philippines (ECOP), 7 out 10 firms in the country
practice contractualization. Some of the worst
“contractualizers” among companies are also among
the biggest, such as Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco’s
San Miguel Corporation (SMC) conglomerate (1,100
regulars out of its 26,000 total workforce); Henry Sy’s
SM Shoemart (1,300 regulars of 20,000); and Manny
Pangilinan’s Philippine Long Distance Telephone
Company (4,100 of 10,000).[1]

[1] EILER, “The Philippine Labor Situation”, July 2008.
http://barangayrp.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/the-philippine-labor-situ
, accessed, January 31, 2010.
 Henry Sy’s SM network of malls is serviced by
thousands of direct hired or concessionaire
hired contractuals. 92% of the workers in
these malls, most of whom are women, do
not enjoy security of tenure and other
benefits such as maternity leave – basic labor
rights that have been enshrined in our labor
laws
 In the public sector, Republic Act No. 7430 or the “Attrition
Law” which prohibits the filling-up of positions vacated by
reason of resignation, retirement, dismissal, death or transfer
to another office ushered in the practice of widespread
contractualization in the bureaucracy.

 GMA’s Administrative Order 103, “Directing the Continued

Adoption of Austerity Measures in the Government” issued in
August 31, 2004, reiterates the provision of RA 7430. [1]
 In the University of the Philippines, more and more of jobs
related to maintenance and security, which previously were
part of regular items in UP’s plantilla, are now being
contracted to the agencies. Regular administrative staff
positions in the system, which was over 9,000 in 1999, have
now been reduced to less than 8,000.[2]


[1] http://www.ops.gov.ph/records/ao_no103.htm
 [2] The lower pay and reduced benefits of contractual workers in the university is exemplified by the case of the security
guards of Bolinao Security and Investigation Service Inc. as reported by the Philippine Collegian
http://collegiannews.multiply.com/journal/item/403/Mababang_sahod_katiwalian_ibinunyag_ng_ilang_guwardiya?utm_source=
cp&utm_medium=twitter-cp&utm_campaign=collegiannews
 The power of the Labor Secretary to assume
jurisdiction (AJ) over a labor dispute was first
instituted by then President Marcos during
Martial Law.

 The AJ, in practice, however, has often been

used to quell legitimate strikes even in
industries that are unlikely to harm the
national interest.
 The practice of using AJ to quell legitimate worker grievance
is never more ­true than in the nine years of the Arroyo
administration.
 The effects of AJ orders on workers rights is best elucidated
by the Hacienda Luisita massacre.
 the intricate relationship between the protection of labor
rights and the rising incidence of poverty.
 Since Arroyo assumed power in 2001, 92
labor leaders, members and organizers have
died due to “government-instigated violence,”
according to data from the KMU.
 The blatant violation of workers rights
through the policies of contractualization and
the use of the AJ powers to quell strikes are
also hallmarks of the same culture of
impunity that characterizes this
administration.
 Whereas a century of struggle for labor rights have
brought about legal recognition of basic rights that
every single worker should enjoy, the anti-labor
policies ushered in by a globalized economy and
made even more systematic by the neoliberal labor
policies under GMA have brought us back to the age
of early capitalism.
 Workers, as Marx and Engels described them in 1848,
“ must sell themselves piecemeal” once again and
they are commodities “like every other article of
commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the
vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of
the market.”
 Pro-labor constitutional provisions are not
sufficient to guarantee the rights of labor.
History tells us that advancing labor rights
and welfare depends primarily on the
capacity of labor to organize and fight for
them.
 While the 2010 national elections provide an
opportunity to demand from candidates their
stand on labor’s legislative agenda, the
working classes have no illusion that a new
administration shall hand to them on a silver
platter social justice and human rights.
 It is still a militant, organized and vibrant
worker’s movement, comprised of regular,
contractual and unemployed workers, which
is key to the protection and promotion of the
rights of labor in the country.